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Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

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Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#241

Post by interludead »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #96

Three modern desktop environments that I use: - Windows 10/11. Especially in 11, it's easiest just to type the start of an app's name into the search box. As opposed to the two clicks it takes to get to the "traditional" menu where you still have to scroll to find it. - Gnome (only on fresh Linux installs, usually replaced with Mate pretty soon). Has a smartphone-style app grid, but here, too, its quickest just to ty…

Sometimes I wonder if the people designing this stuff ever actually use dual displays day to day

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#243

Post by mg794613 »

That's just the chicago theme I'va had for years now on my XFCE, I think it's a bit lame to steal that theme (not from Microsoft but the maker of that xfce theme), put it in a repository, give it a different name, and pose it as your own work?

The repo literally adds nothing, just a name change.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#244

Post by bobbyraduloff »

mg794613 wrote: post #243

That's just the chicago theme I'va had for years now on my XFCE, I think it's a bit lame to steal that theme (not from Microsoft but the maker of that xfce theme), put it in a repository, give it a different name, and pose it as your own work? The repo literally adds nothing, just a name change.

I think the main difference is that it’s a fully set up installable ISO of Fedora Atomic XFCE with the theme and other tweaks preloaded which is a convenient thing to have, I guess. Also they do credit Chicago95 pretty much at the top of the README.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#245

Post by fc417fc802 »

leonidasv wrote: post #98
metadat wrote: post #5

This looks nice and easy to use. My hypothesis is today's "modern" OS user interfaces are objectively worse from a usability perspective, obfuscating key functionality behind layers of confusing menus. It reminds me of these "OS popularity since the 70s" time lapse views: https://youtube.com/watch?v=cTKhqtll5cQ The dominance of Windows is crazy, even today, Mac desktops and laptops are comparatively niche

When I used XFCE as my daily driver, I once tried installing Chicago95 just for nostalgia and it stick as my daily driver for almost a year! The UI is less distracting than modern UIs and there's something to it that makes it easier to just know which window is open over which window that's lacking in modern UIs (I think it's the over-reliance on soft shadows and the borderless windows). Eventually, I stopped using i…

This entire comment section has me repeatedly thinking to myself "you don't run into that problem with i3-alikes" over and over. My choice not to put up with modern UX bullshit is feeling strongly reaffirmed right now. Not that it needed to be.

> it was always annoying to send an screenshot to someone and have to explain that no, I wasn't using Windows 95

That's not a negative, that's a fringe benefit as an endless source of entertainment.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#246

Post by fc417fc802 »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #193
ianmcgowan wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A chromebox mounted behind the monitor did the trick for me. Haven't had an emergency wipe/reinstall in years. Also, a tablet with keyboard takes some of the pressure off having a "computer" and you can go with iOS or Android depending on what phone they use.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Exposing your parents to total surveillance (from one corp to another) is not what I'd characterize as safe or friendly. Linux is fine these days if the hardware is supported, and you can use an immutable distro if extra reliability is warranted.

You also can't properly back up the system unless you install a custom ROM and take on the associated maintenance burden. (At least Android. I'm not sure to what extent these things are left up to the whims of the developer on iOS.)

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#247

Post by fc417fc802 »

flas9sd wrote: post #135

seen the win32 aesthetic used for higher-order reasons: separating "work mode" from playtime. An extra user to do so on the same machine helps. Connect the dots reading https://www.marginalia.nu/log/99_context/ and seeing the ui change in old vs new screencasts https://www.youtube.com/@ViktorLofgren/videos

> I get significantly more work done when I unplug my computer from the Internet.

I tried this, but documentation is often a huge problem. Increasing amounts of it are primarily online and not particularly straightforward to mirror locally.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#248

Post by SlackSabbath »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #49
esafak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Windows programs hid functionality under layers of menus and the registry. MacOS, at least, surfaces much less functionality, because it offers sensible defaults. I never had to do anything akin to fiddling with the Windows Registry. I did like some Windows things, though, like the ribbon, and reconfigurable UIs. Today's UIs are more immutable, for the worse.

It’s not a 1:1 mapping, but much power user functionality in macOS is designed to progressively reveal itself as the user becomes more technically capable, a type of design known as progressive disclosure. This allows newbies to not feel overwhelmed while also allowing power users to feel at home. The problem is that way too many people approach macOS with the Windows way of doing things firmly planted in their minds…

As somebody who recently had to switch to Mac for work, my experience has been the exact opposite of this. Every other OS I've used since Windows 95 I've been able to get to grips with the same way: start off using the mouse to find my way around the UI, and introduce keyboard shortcuts as and when I find them useful. Eventually I get to the point of being able to use either exclusively keyboard or exclusively mouse for most tasks.

MacOS seems to _require_ some unergonomic combination of both from the get go. Some basic things are easy with the keyboard but hard/impossible with the mouse and vice versa. The Finder app doesn't even have a button to go 'up' a directory for god's sake.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#249

Post by fc417fc802 »

zeroq wrote: post #183

This really resonates with me. Every time I try desktop linux it feels like it's 30 years behind in usability.

That surprises me. The major DEs (KDE and Gnome) have felt reasonably polished to me for quite a few years now, they haven't felt buggy to me for even longer, and they always felt like they catered to power users unlike Windows and Mac that actively get in your way when trying to customize things.

Several times they've been ahead of the curve and I've been surprised to learn that Windows or Mac were only just getting a feature that I'd had access to for years or more.

Of course at present I only use i3-alikes. I'd characterize those as a return to the sanity of the past.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#250

Post by oefnak »

red_trumpet wrote: post #225
netsharc wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Android phones do so freaking much of this too. Open the Google app (or swipe left from the home screen on the Pixel Launcher), gone are the days where it's a copy of their original homepage and is just a search bar, now it has news... Go to the search bar, and it shows trending searches. Die in a tucking fire!

You can definitely disable the "swipe left" thing on the launcher.

Yea, but you can't make it a home screen like when you swipe right.
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